


What’s Fair

by Hopetohell



Category: Hellraiser & Related Fandoms, Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Gore, Reader-Insert, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:26:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopetohell/pseuds/Hopetohell
Summary: They weigh your suffering against pleasure, and when the scales balance then their work will be finished.
Relationships: Mike/Reader
Kudos: 2





	What’s Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Built from hazy memories of the original Hellraiser and the firm conviction that Mike could’ve been a good man in the end.

It starts with a trade. 

Mike’s an idiot, a goddamned fucking dumbass with a heart of gold and you _knew_ he was trouble, knew you never should’ve pulled him into the shadows, never should’ve pulled apart his bluffs and bluster to stroke across his tender core. Never should’ve made him yours. 

And now you are bound here with your hands and feet shackled to the wet rocks, glass shards cutting at your back because this is poetic justice. You tore him open and took what you wanted from him and now you are banished here, pulled by the puzzle box to a hell built from your worst memories. 

It’s not what you deserve, no, they don’t think like that. They weigh your suffering against pleasure, and when the scales balance then their work will be finished. But it takes so long to transmute this pain into ecstasy, so long that for some the scales never balance. Some are still pulled apart piece by piece or dismembered all at once, only to wake up whole. They blink away the nightmare just in time for it to begin anew. 

And you? You understand their intent, you know they only want to help you, and it would be so good to please them, wouldn’t it? But you fail over and over. You can’t quite reach that tipping point, that moment where your body catches up to your brain and welcomes agony. You try, you try, and they want so badly to see you succeed, don’t they? So they bind you here where every movement drives the glass deeper, where the rocks run red with so much blood you’d surely die if you were living. You want to moan, you try, you really do, but it all comes out as screams. And anyway they know you are not ready. 

Mike is a god damned fool but he is strong and he is stubborn and secretly kind. And he proposes a trade. They listen, savoring the tremor in his voice, as he offers himself, as he makes a sacrifice you never asked for. And they make sure you listen, make sure you hear him offer up what you couldn’t give. 

“Trade,“ he says. “Body for body.“ It’s fair, isn’t it? He is terrified but he lifts his chin and stands as tall as he can. When they cut his clothes from him, when they make him stand naked and shivering, when they drive him to his knees with chains that bruise and cut and break his ribs with every strike, he holds steady. And you watch, burning with cold and pain and _god_ you want to shove him from their sight. How dare he, how dare he sacrifice himself like this, how dare he trade body for body. How dare he open himself to them in this way that you could not? 

He thrives. He flourishes under their tutelage, bruises blooming like wings across his back, his eyes sharp and bright and full of tears. 

Like everything else he does, he reaches for his torment with both hands, pulls it apart, turns it over in his mind til he can grasp the shape of it. He’s such a quick study, god, he anticipates their movement and rises to meet them. They love him, more than they ever loved you, they see his progress and they coo and praise and tell him _yes, that’s it, that’s good._ The scale moves up and down, seeking equilibrium. 

When you return with all the hounds of hell at your heels, he isn’t even bound, isn’t chained or tied or caged; he kneels on glass with his ankles clasped in his hands, body bowed, face turned up to the endless grey sky. He is covered all over in tiny deep cuts, little slices that must burn and sting with every breath, every movement. His chest heaves under the cenobites’ attention, under the little cuts their razor-laced gloves leave in their wake, but his face is slack with pleasure; his eyes are half-lidded and his mouth falls open not to scream but to sigh. 

He sees you approach and his eyes widen, shining round and wet and dark. He is almost complete, nearly perfect; he will take his place at their table and they will guide his hand as he learns to bring these darkest pleasures to others in turn. He kneels at the edge of no return, opens his arms to embrace his tormentors. He beams, radiant, slipping from your grasp so you cry out, you yell, you give him back his name. 

_Mike. Come back. Come on, we’ve gotta go._ And it’s stupid, they see you, they will tear you to shreds and you will _stay_ shredded because you failed, you left and came back only so you could continue failing. But your hounds are hungry; you promised them meat and here it is. They descend upon the cenobites and though it will not destroy them it will at least keep them busy for a while. 

So you tug at Mike, pull him upright, still drifting lost in his haze of sensation, but not beyond retrieval. Not yet, though he leaned out over the precipice and nearly fell. His eyes are muzzy but he turns to you and tries to focus, turns to you and says in wonder, “you came back for me.”


End file.
